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Saturday, March 1, 2014

Family Home Evening -- families

Families SHOULD
Be Together
Forever

by
Marie Scott

March
2014

God
Put Us into Families

Father in
Heaven put us into families so we would have natural ties of love and
acceptance from the minute we leave our heavenly home, until we return.

While in
our families, though we are all brothers and sisters on earth, we develop
strong feelings of love and understanding for our parents, grandparents, and
siblings, and the Lord has provided a way for us to keep those bonds throughout
all eternity. Ideally, families should be together forever—not living in the
same home— but they should be together in love and kinship.

Family Goal: The Celestial Kingdom

There is only one place after
earth life where we live again as families, and that is in the celestial
kingdom. Our job is to work to reach the celestial kingdom, and help our family
members reach it as well. We do that by: living the commandments, being baptized, being
endowed in the temple, being sealed to a spouse in the temple one day, and by
enduring to the end of our lives in righteousness.

That is harder to do than it
sounds, but the Lord has given us many helps along the way, including our
families, the Church, the atonement, and vicarious work for the dead. We need
the help of others to reach this goal, but the most important thing we can do
as parents and individuals is to love each other and set a good example of
righteous living.

Matthew Brown, says of children
adopting the beliefs of their parents:

The old saying, “People don’t
care what you know until they know that you care,” is true. Children who have a
bad relationship with their parents won’t want to adopt their beliefs—far from
it.

Getting
Along with Others

Even in families, everyone is
unique and different, which makes getting along with others something we all
have to work at. That is best done in
love, and with tactful honesty.

In the 2010
Ensign, page 125, President Thomas S. Monson said:

All
of you wear the mantle of charity. Life is perfect for none of us. Rather than
being judgmental and critical of each other, may we have the pure love of
Christ for our fellow travelers in this journey through life. May we recognize
that each one is doing [his or] her best
to deal with the challenges which come [his or] her way, and may we strive to
do our best to help out.

As family
members, we should understand, as President Monson said, that life is not easy
for anyone, and there are behaviors we should avoid. It is never a good thing:

·for one sibling to daily pick on
another just because he or she can (Mosiah 27:3,
Proverbs 10:12)

·for families to gang up on one member
and criticize him or her (Mosiah 4:14, Alma
1:21)

·for one member of the family to carry
most of the load and do all the work (Mosiah 4:27,
D&C 10:4)

·for any family member to repeatedly
slough responsibilities (2
Thessalonians 3:10)

·for tempers to continually flare (Colossians 3:8)

·for the home to be continually disordered (D&C 88:119)

·for someone to be continually
over-controlling (D&C
121:37, 39)

These are all behaviors or
things that build up in a home over time that Satan makes good use of. They
destroy peace or self-esteem, making individuals want to flee the home. Home,
though it may not be perfect, should be a place where we want to be, where we
are loved, where we can grow, where we feel needed, and where we are
increasingly free to choose the right as we grow up.

The
Big Picture / How is the Home’s Temperature?

Parents and children should
periodically take a step back and look at the big picture of home. How is the
home temperature? Is home a good place
to be? How is life for each family member? Does everyone feel loved? Does
everyone help out and feel needed? Is
any one individual overwhelmed? Is anyone feeling stifled for some reason? Is
everyone doing what he or she can to help or contribute? (Play the “Home Temperature Game” to help
family members become more aware of each other and the feeling in your home.)

Parents and children who are trying to be together forever
should also be living the gospel by:

Holding
family prayer morning and night (D&C
88:120)

Having
family and individual scripture study

Holding
regular Family Home Evenings

Attending
church meetings (and the temple) regularly

Eating dinner together
regularly, and

Serving
others

Parents should teach children to work, organize, solve
problems; and to love and respect God, self, and others. They should also teach
them that the sacrifice the Lord requires of us, today, is that of a broken
heart and a contrite spirit. (Psalms 34:18, D&C 56:18)

Let’s make being together worth it now, so it will be
possible in the future . . . Our family should be together forever and ever.

How’s
the Home Temperature? activity:
Using the thermometer, (after this lesson), and questions above, (ormake up some of
your own questions), ask the family how they feel they are doing on each one.
Raise or lower the thermometer according to the general consensus.

Dinner
table activity: Sometime when
everyone is present, have everyone look around the dinner table and point out
how satisfying it is to have everyone together. Ask family members to imagine
having any seat permanently vacant, and note how sad that would be if it was
forever.

Family Pot O' Gold: Print out the Family Pot O' Gold picture on this blog and fill in the gold pieces with family photos. Show the completed collage and explain how each family member is treasured.

FHE
demonstration: Take the family
photo album, or find pictures of each family member. One-by-one, hold up the
pictures and tell about each person. Then point out how sad it would be to you
to ever lose any of those people from your life. Our Father in Heaven loves
each of His children even more than we can, and He doesn’t want to lose any of
us either.